The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand

Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. --MaxedOutMama

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.--Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. --Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. --Billy Beck

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Six working days after Orlando and I feel slightly vindicated in regard to my earlier prediction. After a SLOW start to the week, we are now out of "cheap" ARs. We had eight or nine Ruger AR556s and a couple of 1st Gen S&W M&P-15 Sports all of which are gone as of close of business today. We still have four Daniel Defense rifles of differing models as well as a couple of higher end Colts and a lone LWRC model. Apparently hysteria has a price tag and it is under a grand. We are out of 30-round P-Mags but still have some 20-rounders and a truck load of 40-rounders left. Had a guy come into the shop today in full blown panic mode wanting to buy 30-round mags "before thy are banned again!!!" I informed the gentleman that all we have left are commercial, steel mags. He looked at me like a monkey doing a math problem and then asked if we were getting any more P-Mags in. I replied that I wasn't 100% certain as there had been a run on them. He then asked how much the steel mags were. I gave him a price of $17.99 and then he asked how much the P-Mags would cost. $15.99 was the reply, $16.99 if he wanted windows. He looked at me like a dog does when it hears a weird sound and then said he would wait for the P-mags. Apparently hysteria has more than one price tag. Got lots of phone calls today asking about our existing stock of ARs. When told that all we had left were the DDs, LWRC and Colts, the response was almost a universally despondent: "Okay, thanks."

Had lots of calls about lowers as well as parts kits. We still have a good supply of both. Same for ammo. We still have AKs, M-1As and AR-10 platforms on the shelves. Interest in pocket pistols and revolvers have picked up a bit but only just. Same with reloading components. Our distributors haven't been totally cleaned out but rifles and mags are leaving their warehouses with much haste.

I did notice a large number of phone calls from women asking about ARs today. The rest of the crew commented on this as well. A couple of the calls were from women who were calling for their husbands/boyfriends as evidenced by the fact that I could hear the lazy bastards in the background correcting the female caller when she misspoke. I have no doubt that those dudes will last a long time if things go sideways. (I do wish someone would invent a sarcasm font)

Can't wait to see what happens next week.

So they got off to a slow start, but things are picking up as Congress starts making "BAN 'EM!" noises again.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

So George Takei, the guy who votes for the party that actually put him and his family in a concentration camp, asks:

It’s safe to assume none of us actually wants to see ISIS-inspired terrorists armed with semi-automatic rifles, able to attack at will within our own borders. But to prevent that, we must address a rather tricky question: How much liberty must we concede?

Think it doesn't matter who ends up in the White House in January? I gotta go with Michael Bane:

(I)t is my opinion (and the opinion of some of the finest activists and Second Amendment attorneys — people who have been on the front lines for DECADES) that there is a good chance the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms cannot survive a Hillary Presidency with taking some brutal hits, or be destroyed altogether. Should she be elected, we will be facing an Executive, a Judicial (remember, Scalia's gone, along with the 5-4 stand on the Second Amendment) and probably a Legislative attack. Secondly, with Obama's successes in weaponizing Federal agencies, we can expect attacks from those agencies, including the IRS, the EPA, Homeland Security, TSA, not to mention a reinvigorated BATFE.

"Those agencies along can do staggering damage to the gun culture without any vote in Congress. All it takes is a willingness to wield them against us.

"In the face of what I know to be a guaranteed attack from a blood enemy, I do not give a DAMN what Trump said or did years ago, or whether Ted Cruz says this or that, or whether any of the Republican weasels in Congress, who have turned their back on us for years, have to say! If Trump turns on us — which I do not believe will happen based on my own research and my own conversations — so be it. We will face that and deal with it. And we'll likely be able to deal with it from a position of strength. But with Hillary it is all-out war from Day One.

I don't "Unconditionally support Donald Trump," but when I leave the voting booth in November, his name will have the blackened oval next to it.

Wednesday, June 08, 2016

I know some of you enjoy these, so here's the latest free content from my fishing over at Quora.com's well-stocked pool.

Back in October of last year I answered this question: "What are the most practical and effective steps we can take to reduce gun violence in the US -- mass shootings, domestic violence and gun crime generally?"

Homicide has declined from 8.2/100,000 population to 4.5/100,000 since 1995. That's a 45% drop. Whatever it is we're doing, we should keep doing it. Oh, right - with respect to gun laws, we're making it easier for people to get concealed-carry permits.

Now if we want to address the "non-mass shooting/gun violence" we really need to identify where it's happening and who is doing the shooting and getting shot, and contrary to popular opinion it's not Joe Average "just snapping" and killing his significant other. Yes, that does happen, but it's the exception rather than the rule - unless Joe Average has a long rap sheet and is involved in the drug trade along with his significant other.

People who commit murder overwhelmingly fit into a small, easily identifiable demographic: They have a fairly long history of interactions with law enforcement, usually with an escalating level of violence, and the majority of them live in urban areas. And not only urban areas, but specific neighborhoods of urban areas. And they tend to be young and male. And, yes, I'll say it because facts are not racist: young black men are disproportionately both the victims and the perpetrators of homicide.

In fact, if homicide was actually treated as a disease, epidemiologists would call this "a clue," and would work aggressively to reduce deaths among this relatively small demographic that skews the national statistics so very badly.

Instead, we talk about passing "gun control laws" that only affect the people who AREN'T out there murdering.

With respect to reducing mass shooting incidents, in a nation of 300,000,000 people these events are about as common as people getting killed by lightning strikes. Yet in almost every case they share these commonalities:

They occur in "Gun Free Zones."

The perpetrator has a known history of mental issues and likely has been treated with psychotropic drugs, but has never been involuntarily committed.

The perpetrator only stops when he decides he's finished, or when confronted by someone else with a gun.

They want attention, that's why they do it.

So if we want to lower the number of these incidents, first I recommend that we stop putting the names and pictures of the perpetrators on TV, magazines and newspapers. Second, I recommend that we stop thinking that "Gun Free Zone" signs have any effect on criminal activity. If someone's willing to rob you, rape you, and/or murder you, do you think a SIGN is going to stop them? And honestly, with ten people dead and seven injured, would a defender with a gun, right there right then, actually have made the situation WORSE? This guy was willing to risk his life to protect others, but was disarmed by those "Gun Free Zone" signs.

I got a few positive responses, but just this Tuesday it was discovered by someone new. Here's that exchange:

There is no correlation of concealed weapon licences and reduction in homicides, as in “bad guys think twice before committing a crime”. None whatsoever.

You can quote mine statistical data for a lot of things that increased since 1995, and then attribute the reduction in violent crimes to…say, cellphones. Vast increase in cellphones, the probability of a “victim” or someone in the vicinity having a cellphone and calling for help - and as of lately recording you too - is insanely more probable to deter a “baddy” vs. the fear of a vigilante shooter. Its a loose probability, but still far more plausible than the fear of “the white hat gunner”.

For the biggest part of the late 90s and early 2010s there was a huge % increase of MP3 players…with your deductive logic I could correlate the decrease in violent crimes to listening to good 90s music…but that again would be a deductive fallacy.

Me:

“There is no correlation of concealed weapon licences and reduction in homicides, as in “bad guys think twice before committing a crime”. None whatsoever.”

No, the correlation exists. As you note, increases in “smart phones” and MP3 players also correlate. It is causation that cannot be proven statistically. (Incidentally, your use of the word “vigilante” says a lot about your personal bias on this topic.) Yet if the worst thing you can say about the massive increase in concealed-weapons permits nationwide is “It may not have contributed to the dramatic decrease in violent crime,” then I submit that “More guns = more crime” has been decisively dis-proven, no? And hasn’t that been the chant of gun-control forces forever?

Dimitrios Tolios:

The definition of vigilante is irrelevant to personal biases: “A member of a self-appointed group of citizens who undertake law enforcement in their community without legal authority, typically because the legal agencies are thought to be inadequate.”

If you don’t like the use of this word that describes nearly perfectly the way legal possession of concealed weapons would deter crimes with the implied threat of capital punishment without due process, well, tough luck.

Now, for how many guns are “too many” according to people, or when a critical mass is reached after which adding more is irrelevant, or which chants touch which simpletons on one side and which on the other, makes no difference. Its another fallacy to think that a popular belief has any merit “ad populum”.

Me:

“If you don’t like the use of this word that describes nearly perfectly the way legal possession of concealed weapons would deter crimes with the implied threat of capital punishment without due process, well, tough luck.”

So do these meet your definition of “the way legal possession of concealed weapons” deters crime?

Now in a few cases above we won’t be seeing any recidivism from the perpetrators of the crimes since they’ll be pushing up daisies and not contributing to future violent crime, but in each case crimes were deterred with either implied or actual deadly force, what you term “capital punishment.”

Here’s a clue as to the difference: “deadly force” is legally authorized - to anybody - in the immediate defense of life and health of oneself or others. The threat of deadly force is legally valid to stop the commission of a felony involving deadly force (see the fifth example - robber had a knife, defender had a gun, nobody got killed). Cops have that power as do private citizens. Capital punishment is punishment carried out by the State only after due process of law. The two are not equal.

Vigilantism as you express it involves the use of deadly force not to stop a felony in progress, but one or more persons being “judge, jury and executioner” after the fact. That’s why vigilantism is illegal. It's literally outside the law. Self-defense and defense of others is well within the law.

Your personal bias seems to indicate that you believe self-defense is “vigilantism,” or you cannot tell the difference between them, because the word not only isn’t “nearly perfect,” it’s completely wrong.

“Now, for how many guns are “too many” according to people, or when a critical mass is reached after which adding more is irrelevant…”

And again, you misinterpret. If your theory was correct and we reached a “critical mass” at some point in the past “after which adding more is irrelevant” then violent crime would have reached some plateau that, at best, would have remained constant with respect to population. But that’s emphatically not the case. Violent crime has been on the decline for the better part of two decades while the “number of guns” in private hands has skyrocketed, especially over the last decade. Thus the argument you hand-wave away as irrelevant is, as I note, disproven. Yet it’s the fundamental one on which “gun control” arguments - and you admit this - are based: “There are too many guns.” You just suggest that adding more hasn’t had any further deleterious effect.

Dimitrios Tolios:

I did not put out the argument more guns = more crime. You did. And you swiftly rushed to say it is dis-proven, not based on scientific research, just by arbitrarily pairing statistical facts: Fact 1) A has gone up, Fact 2) B has gone down, thus A lowers B.

Also the # of legal guns out there is irrelevant out of context, as for example a single gun owner might own hundreds. % of people asking for stricter gun control is going up. That’s a statistical fact. The sales of guns are statistically rising far beyond population growth. Thus it is not a “A equals B” type of a stretch to think that gun ownership could be going up overall, but a large % of those guns go to the same people. Good, law-abiding people that want to have guns and don’t feel satisfied with one. Or ten. Much like I like to have many photographic lenses & cameras for example “just to be ready”.

All these are a matter that needs serious studies and research to produce any significant findings. All the links you’ve posted are no “Studies”…are - again - by definition anecdotal. Even when something is based on a true account, it is still of not scientific significance in itself.

As for the vigilantism and what is after the fact and what before the fact, well, I hope you realize that this is out of the control of any individual, police representative etc. It is not the time of Minority Report (yet), the “offence” has to come before the 3rd party responds, with deadly force or not. It has to be after the fact.

Also, if “trained” police officers clearly & often misjudge situations that “threaten” them, and automatically warrant the use of deadly force, giving to all individuals the right to “hold their ground” and do the same, is a recipe for more and not less grief for all parties involved.

Me:

“I did not put out the argument more guns = more crime. You did. And you swiftly rushed to say it is dis-proven, not based on scientific research, just by arbitrarily pairing statistical facts: Fact 1) A has gone up, Fact 2) B has gone down, thus A lowers B.”

No you didn’t. You didn’t have to. It’s been the mantra of the gun control side for decades - and one you appear to agree with when you stipulate to a “critical mass” argument. And you misunderstand the argument. It isn’t that “1) A has gone up, 2) B has gone down, thus A lowers B” it’s that the argument is that 1) if A goes up then 2) B must also - and it hasn’t. Dodge that all you want with your “critical mass” argument, but it’s 3) C a fact. It hasn’t gone up, it hasn’t remained level - it’s gone down.

“Also the # of legal guns out there is irrelevant out of context, as for example a single gun owner might own hundreds. % of people asking for stricter gun control is going up. That’s a statistical fact.”

That’s Gallup, CNN/ORC, Pew and Rassmussen. All of them disagree with your “statistical fact” concerning the percentage of people in favor of stricter gun control going up, and at least one details an increase in the number of new gun owners in the U.S.

“All the links you’ve posted are no “Studies”…are - again - by definition anecdotal. Even when something is based on a true account, it is still of not scientific significance in itself.”

Yet you’re in favor of disarming those people so that you feel safer.

Tell each of them that they’d have been better off unarmed.

“It is not the time of Minority Report (yet), the “offence” has to come before the 3rd party responds, with deadly force or not. It has to be after the fact.”

Care to parse that sentence so it makes some kind of sense? I don’t want to misinterpret it.

“Also, if “trained” police officers clearly & often misjudge situations that “threaten” them, and automatically warrant the use of deadly force, giving to all individuals the right to “hold their ground” and do the same, is a recipe for more and not less grief for all parties involved.”

And THAT is the “more guns = more violence” argument. “Oh noes! If mere citizens are allowed to carry guns, there’ll be shootouts over fender-benders and Wal*mart sales!” We heard that in each and every state contemplating “shall-issue” concealed carry legislation, and it never happened anywhere.

Cops walk into situations in progress. Citizens are the ones the situation is directly affecting. They’re pretty damned sure whether there’s a crime going on and who the assailant is. The cops have to figure it out when they get there.

Are you advocating the disarmament of police so that there will be “less grief for all parties involved”?

Dimitrios Tolios:

Your links are not relevant, much like your imposed correlation between more guns being bought vs. violent crime going down.

People have more disposable income in shear numbers, they buy lots of pointless consumer goods, some buy guns.

Very few people consider gun ownership being a OMFG most important problem…gun owners that identify themselves as little more than gun owners are those making a big deal out of it.

And that is the reason you are so obsessed with your totally inconclusive and uncorellated discovery, and you quote-mine headlines that inside the text or the actual polling number speak of fluctuations that happen between 1–2 years, and ofc is something totally natural given the small actual # of people being polled. You are so invested in this Truism tho, that you are committing all logical fallacies in the book, talking in circles and destroying one straw-man after the other.

You want trends: Gallup historical data on Guns. Like, google search #1…it is not in favor of your arguement.

And Gallup is not the only polling organization.

Give or take the % of people with guns in their homes are the same or slightly declining. If it is true that more and more guns are being sold, it has to be true that the same people are buying them

Meanwhile:

You devolved this ad nauseum to a personal arguement starting from the point that I am your stereotypical gun-control arch-enemy. Something that was never stated or implied.

As for the “dissarm police” thing, again, another strawman that was never implied. What was said is that policemen prove themselves too often to be applying excessive force…are you arguing that the Police doesn’t need more training?

“Citizens are the ones the situation is directly affecting. They’re pretty damned sure whether there’s a crime going on and who the assailant is. The cops have to figure it out when they get there.”

Thats hillarious…exaclty the “vigilante” stereotype that I did not mean to imply but you accused me of: the “citizen that is pretty damn sure” that whomever wronged them (according to their own account) should pull a gun…

Sorry mister, you are hopeless…good luck.

With all the typos, I could almost see the foam at the corners of his mouth. So I had to get in one last shot:

“Your links are not relevant…”

Because you say so, right? You made an assertion - the percentage of people in favor of stricter gun control was growing. I gave FOUR DIFFERENT POLLS that refuted that assertion. But they’re “not relevant.” Check.

Once again, with feeling: You’re misunderstanding (deliberately?) my argument. MORE GUNS DOES NOT MEAN MORE VIOLENT CRIME. And your counter argument was that some “critical mass” of guns had been reached at some point in the past. If that were true, then VIOLENT CRIME SHOULD BE STABLE. But it’s NOT. It’s been trending down for the better part of two decades. I’ve repeated myself twice now. Perhaps this time you’ll get it?

“People have more disposable income in shear numbers, they buy lots of pointless consumer goods, some buy guns.”

Right. More people are in favor of stricter gun control, but they go out and drop several hundred dollars not on a new HDTV or computer, but a gun. Pointlessly. Just because. When was the last time you spent $300–$500 on something that didn’t really interest you? Grasping at straws much?

“And Gallup is not the only polling organization.”

No indeed. Which is why I included Pew, CNN and Rasmussen.

“Give or take the % of people with guns in their homes are the same or slightly declining. If it is true that more and more guns are being sold, it has to be true that the same people are buying them.”

Obviously math is not your strong suit (much like understanding the difference between correlation and causation). I’ve addressed this question of DECLINING GUN OWNERSHIP!! before. If you use the General Social Survey results the percentage of households containing a firearm has dropped from 50% in 1970 to 35% in 2012. If you use the Gallup numbers

the total number of households has increased from 63.5 million in 1970 to 114.8 million in 2010. In either case, that's a net increase of 8 million households in which there is a firearm over those two periods. Assuming one firearm owner per household, that’s minimum 8 million NEW firearm owners. And there’s reason to believe that this number strongly under-represents reality.

And now you shift the goalposts to “mass shootings”? I think we’ll skip this one and move on.

“You devolved this ad nauseum to a personal arguement starting from the point that I am your stereotypical gun-control arch-enemy.”

Oh no! You give yourself far too much credit. Stereotypical, yes. Arch-enemy, no. You’re the average, everyday gun control supporter. You’re absolutely sure of your “facts” and completely unaffected by anything that contradicts them. When confronted by someone who can refute you, you bob, weave, obfuscate and move the goalposts. Commonly the next step is reasoned discourse

“Thats hillarious…exaclty the “vigilante” stereotype that I did not mean to imply but you accused me of: the “citizen that is pretty damn sure” that whomever wronged them (according to their own account) should pull a gun…”

So if confronted by an armed robber, they should….?

“Sorry mister, you are hopeless…good luck.”

Pot? Meet kettle.

Understand, I don’t write these things to change your mind. I do it so that the truly undecided can read what people like you have to say and what I have to say and perhaps look into the facts for themselves and make up their own minds. Judging from the polls, this has been pretty effective! ;-)

No further replies today, but the thread is still up. "Reasoned discourse" has not yet been implemented.

Sunday, June 05, 2016

What is clear is once anyone has become so convinced that one of the two halves of the Running Things Party comprises every human vice and ill (and no few I had previously thought limited to the animal kingdom), then there's no further reason to talk. The attitude itself is what gives rise to purges and pogroms, killing fields and death marches -- no matter who espouses it or what virtues they ascribe to themselves and their supposed peers, or even practice. Persons who speak like that will murder you -- or hand you over to be used up and killed -- if they even suspect you might be a member of a group they loathe; and they will sleep soundly that night. Left, right, center; amoral and "practical" or rigidly moral and unworldly, it doesn't matter: once that level of dehumanizing rhetoric has infected someone's mind, they are like an armed landmine.

...perverse, prurient, crocodile-eyed, necrophiliac mass-producers of human misery and gleeful destroyers of truth, justice, and the American way...sepulchre-hearted human deserts walking the Earth only to look for more victims...silly, stupid, ignorant bastards proud of every good thing they've never done, every person they've never been considerate toward, every fact they've never learned and will never acknowledge, and every virtue they will never possess or even attempt to comprehend...preternaturally drunken, bleary-eyed, zombie-like, empty vessels who wander aimlessly until given instruction by their masters...unthinking, unquestioning, unfeeling diabolus ex machina mockeries of the human condition, perpetually acting out a burlesque of the basest and least interesting psychological dysfunctions...

Republicans, you vile, repulsive, scum. You're not leading this country. You're not contributing to this country. You're not even part of this country. You are the maggot-ridden rot that arises in this country's damaged flesh; you are the vultures constantly picking at us to see if we're weak enough yet to become your next meal; you create problems where none would otherwise exist, just to further weaken America and quicken your own insatiable appetites; you are garbage, and you are traitors. And you are not welcome in this country anymore.

Note that this was during the 2012 election cycle. As I asked back then, what happened to that "New Civility" thing we were all supposed to be supporting after the Gabby Giffords shooting here in Tucson?

Now I get the excuse he was given as to why they wouldn't publish, but in reality the entire book is about as un-PC as it can be, and often hilariously so.

It must have made his editor cringe. (Or projectile vomit, I'm not sure which.) Either way, I'm sure he/she was running for their "safe space" with their blankie.

But near the climax of the book there's a few paragraphs I want to share with you under the heading of "Truth in Fiction" again:

(T)he truth is the most valuable thing in the world. It's, in fact, the only thing that has value and provides value for everything else. Everything that's false can't be relied on and is therefore actually worthless. Therefore, there's no sense in having it. But if you have the truth, well then, you've really got something there, don'tcha? See, with the truth you can really do anything. The truth makes you very powerful, especially if you own it.
--

The truth was important. But for a long time, a very long time it really hasn't been trading real high in the marketplace of ideas. What's been more important these days is how people feel about things. Regardless of whether they're true or not. For example, you've all taken your social media etiquette classes since elementary school, right? And what's the one thing you learn in those classes? 'The most important thing is not to offend anyone.' Isn't that right? So, you don't tell someone the truth, because, after all, what is truth? Isn't it whatever we decide it to be? Whatever we want it to do? Whatever we want it to be regardless of history, culture, and the belief systems of anyone who doesn't agree with the popular zeitgeist?

--

No, kids, that's incorrect. The truth isn't just what we want it to be. The truth is just so.

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